For most children, Christmas is the most fantastic time of the year: bright lights, presents, family gatherings, singing, laughter, etc. But for autistic children, Christmas can be particularly stressful. All the stimulating sounds and sights that non-autistic children enjoy during the holidays can be the very things that wear out autistic children. (See Temple Grandin’s [...][Continue Reading...]

In an earlier post I profiled two hot toys this holiday season that could make good Christmas toys for an autistic girl. In this post I profile a few other good hot girls toys for this season. 1. Lalaloopsy Silly Hair Dolls As I mentioned in a previous post, autistic girls have been found to [...][Continue Reading...]

In line with recent brain imaging studies that find that autistic brains operate fundamentally differently from non-autistic brains (which I talked about in another post), autistic children are intelligent in ways that are different from children without autism. Scientific American has a recent feature on the hidden potential of autistic kids that current IQ tests understate or [...][Continue Reading...]

Many parents of autistic children swear that musical therapy greatly helps autistic children, even if there aren’t a lot of scientific studies that show music therapy programs are effective. This is largely because such studies are hard to do. However, studies and anecdotal evidence do show that autistic children respond positively to music, so believing [...][Continue Reading...]

Advancements in medical imaging have allowed scientists to discover new insights into how autistic brains work. These interesting findings help us better understand how and why autistics think differently from non-autistics and give us insights about how to better teach and play with autistic children. One recent important study was performed by researchers at the [...][Continue Reading...]